Recount strips Ch Nisar of PP-7 victory

taxila - PML-N heavyweight Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan lost the Punjab Assembly seat PP-7 Taxilla to PTI candidate Siddiq Khan after a recount at six polling stations of the constituency on Thursday.The re-counting at six polling stations of PP-7 wiped off PML-N stalwart Ch Nisar Ali Khan by 774 votes from the constituency where he was earlier declared winner with a margin of 516 votes. On the application of Siddiq Khan, the returning officer Saeed Awan conducted the recounting at polling station number 9, 47, 48, 50, 64 and 82 in the presence of candidates and media. Flaws were observed in finalisation and compilation of results. It was discovered that at polling station number 64, Siddiq Khan got 517 votes and Ch Nisar clinched 133 votes but the presiding officer reversed the results and added 517 votes in favour of Ch Nisar while 133 in favour of Siddiq Khan. Same story was repeated at polling station number 82 established in Govt high School Paryail where the presiding officer converted 217 votes of Ch Nisar Ali Khan into 416 and Siddiq Khan’s 415 votes into 280. At polling station number 50 established at Govt high school Chahan, the presiding officer debited 617 votes to Ch Nisar’s account. Thirty-seven votes were found missing and 8 votes were rejected due to different reasons. The returning officer declared previous unofficial results null and void and declared PTI candidate victorious. Results of these six polling stations were not timely submitted by presiding officers and their arrest warrants were issued by the returning officer. The PML is completely eliminated from Wah tehsil as it had already lost one national and one provincial assembly seats from the area. The PTI candidate has already defeated Ch Nisar Ali Khan at NA-53 Rawalpindi and young PTI candidate Taimour Masood in Wah Cantonment PP-8 Rawalpindi-VIII defeated former MPA Umer Farooq.Taimour is a new entrant in politics and the defeat of a seasoned politician from a new face heavily reduced the PML-N influence in the area.Siddiq Khan is the former tehsil nazim and a well-respected figure in his constituency but his victory is termed as quite unexpected. Talking to newsmen, Siddiq Khan said that it was the victory of the masses not of a personality or party. He said that his supporters was confident of his victory, therefore, they have pleaded re-counting of votes at six polling stations. He said that masses were suppressed by bad governance and they answered the PML-N candidates on the polling day.

This news was published in The Nation newspaper. Read complete newspaper of 17-May-2013 here.